HUGE amounts of love, energy and determination drive this delightful Australian documentary illuminating Michelle Leonard’s devotion to introducing children in small rural communities in NSW not just to hearing music but, more importantly, getting down and dirty making it.

Michelle each year drives 4000 kilometres to audition children for the Children’s Choir whose end-of-year concert is the headline act at Coonamble’s annual Moorambilla Festival.

To say she’s passionate about music generally and this choir in particular, is an understatement. Watching filmmaker Lisa Nicol’s chronicling of selecting a group of youngsters from a wide range of socio-economic, cultural and geographic backgrounds and moulding them into a choir, it doesn’t take long to get the message that music is Michelle’s whole life and the choir is a significant source of nourishment that her spirit derives each year.

The kids are lovely, intelligent, enthusiastic, fun to be with and courageous in their journey into a new cultural world that will shape them for life. The film selects a small group to carry its structure. Shot in 2014, it has influenced the subsequent lives of several of them. The audience at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival voted it Best Documentary. That’s a worthy recommendation.

At Palace Electric